


Shall We?

by Izzy_Grinch



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Affection, Alhambra is ok, Everyone Is Alive, Evie x Greenie implied, Family Issues, Fighting Kink, Fix-It, Jacob has no idea who Maxwell is, Lewis has a tiny cameo in the end, Love at First Sight, M/M, Nobody is Dead, Pining, Praise Kink, Resolved Sexual Tension, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Strangers to Lovers, THEY JUST LOVE EACH OTHER OK????, Teamwork, Touch-Starved, Worship, but there're no problems Rothfrye couldn't deal with!, doing missions and heists together, gotta do it all myself, take that Ubisoft, that's the problem, there's a big fire but not at Alhambra, underground fight clubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22293088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/pseuds/Izzy_Grinch
Summary: Jacob and Maxwell meet earlier on the canonical plot. But you know what? To hell with the canon! They fall in love, they work together, they have fun, their passion burns hot and bright, and even when Jacob finds out who Maxwell Roth actually is, they still love each other strong enough to deal with it, too.
Relationships: Jacob Frye/Maxwell Roth
Comments: 25
Kudos: 82





	Shall We?

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Shall we?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22292950) by [Izzy_Grinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/pseuds/Izzy_Grinch). 



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_So now, my dear, it’s just a matter of time,_

_So buckle up, because you’ll soon become my partner in crime!_

Written By Wolves − Genius

There’s literally a waterfall going down his spine, everybody’s patting him on the back and nudging him friendly, for he managed to knock out that burly guy on the third try; not a big deal, really. Sweat is mercilessly gnawing on his scratches, he’s dirty like a boar, his knuckles are terribly beaten, and his nose is running with blood no matter how often he wipes his face with his hand and unkempt bandages. He’s such a sight, as bad as the crowd around, foul and wild with excitement, but God damn him if here and now he’s not the most alive creature inside these stinking walls!

He smears his blood around, making it even worse than before, wipes his fingers on his trousers and stares over people’s heads, seeing someone staring back at him − he knows exactly that the person is looking at him, and he knows there is no one else to look at, and even if there was, he’d know it anyway, because this gaze is straightforward, clear and pins him to the ground. Those eyes are as green as no gardens in London can be, even the royal ones, licked clean from the soot. Jacob has no idea who this man is. He could probably try and guess, since he’s getting pretty good at the investigations with Raymond and that clever Doyle kid. However, Jacob’s head is empty, his throat is dry, and suddenly there’s Topping right in his face, with that darned top hat of his, mawkish flattery and a pack of sticky bills. Jacob counts money, separating paper quickly and skillfully; he loves this part the most. When it’s done, he pushes Topping away, with all these fake _“Ah, Mr. Frye, you’re my savior”_ , and _“A dozen of rounds more, Mr. Frye, and you’ll make me rich”_ , and _“Best of wishes to your dearest sister, Mr. Frye”_ , each is like an annoying fly. The moment is gone. A crowd is just a crowd again, shadows in the gobbed corners are faceless, and a fat evening gain is now the only thing to warm him up, not a stranger’s valuing gaze.

Jacob hangs around the clandestine fight clubs every other night − every two sometimes when he doesn’t feel like moving and his dislocated shoulder is aching or his ankle is twitching after a hard blow. He’s beaten black and blue, but he heals very fast. And if it’s not on his face, then Evie won’t ask anything, she will only watch judgingly; and it’s almost never on his face, because there’s no fucking way he lets someone touch it.

He thoroughly examines his nose bridge in a mirror, along with a fading bruise, and leaves the sister’s car almost in a leap as soon as he hears her steps. Evie can only preach him and talk about morals. She thinks it is immoral to fight for money. He says this same money benefits their dear Brotherhood, because it helps him to feed his Rooks, who then go and rip throats for the sake of both of them. Evie says that he’s better to grow up already. Obviously, their conversations rarely work out. He runs away, leaving her to fumble through papers, make smart comments and call Greenie _“mister”_ with a strained breath, while he himself is up to some real business. They haven’t got out of the suburbs to just sit around and wait for a right moment to come. Though it seems Starrick is sitting too, and all this much-vaunted war of theirs is so tedious that it’d be very hard to notice there is a war happening, if it wasn’t for the Blighters, who constantly pester Jacob in the streets − but only while bobbies aren’t around. It feels more like they just throw limps of dirt at each other _, “Look! We stole a carriage from you! Oh, oh, and_ I _just stole_ two _from you!”_ Behold, England! Behold indeed...

Jacob spends half of this money to buy collapsible top hats and fancy frock-coats, because that’s the exact point of having money, for fuck’s sake, and of being where they are now − half a step higher than they were in Crawley. However, he puts on his worst clothes to blend in with the beggars, street scum and drunkards, who come to see the fists flying. It’s called _incognito_ ; everyone knows Jacob Frye, no one knows him by sight, and so he takes advantage of it, and every time a broken chalk scratches a new alias on the board. Sure, he’d love to wallow in this questionable fame, but it’s _not quite_ the fame he was expecting when moving here. Not even nearly. When he gets recognized, it’s mostly by the Rooks. They wave at him and then− _“How Ms. Frye is doing?”_ Jacob shrugs, how the hell he would know, and dodges these mundane small talks by escaping to the backstreets. London is so big, so full of people, it’s so easy to get lost there forever, and it’s so incredibly, disgustingly, unbearably, deadly boring.

He dodges, slips under an elbow, gets a smack in passing, spins like a corkscrew, and lands his blow on the opponent’s spine. He has a full fist of un-spiked brass knuckles, sitting tightly in his grip; the poor bastard in front of him has a full mouth of sand. Frankly, Jacob doesn’t give a damn. Nobody has forced these fellows to come here; however, they did, and so he rewards them according to his own generosity. Two more hop over the fence. Fine with him. They dance a little, step to the left, repeat, Jacob lures them into action with his aching palm, ducks, tumbles down the first one and kicks him in a stomach just to make sure he won’t get up. Suddenly he’s grabbed and lifted from behind, arms fixed painfully. It gets right to his head, that overwhelming feeling. Not because he didn’t notice the third guy, got exposed, got caught. Not because he sees now the second man opening a tiny knife − just a stub, really, not enough to even shave with. But because behind the asshole’s shoulder, in the back row, when the front ones divide for a moment, he notices how he’s being looked at and what he’s being expected to do. He punches the knife out with a kick of his leg, and the teeth − with a throw of his head, puts the disarmed one to rest and gets back to the other, while the guy’s still disoriented. After it’s done, he quickly squeezes past Topping, who begs him to do an extra round, then climbs up a chair and, slouching under a low ceiling, he searches faces. Topping is rambling and whining around, and is about to start yanking at his trouser-leg, and Jacob thinks maybe he should ask him, maybe this slicker _knows_ , because he seems to know every foul soul in that hell of a place.

Jacob piles down into the chair. He feels like falling apart, quite literally, but he still manages to ask Topping, though it’s only about where he’s going to gather his circus tomorrow. Later this night he prowls with deadly drunk Dickens around some filthy slums, scarring away the swarms of rats instead of ghosts. He drinks too, a lot, then sleeps it through someplace, he doesn’t care where it is exactly, because it’s good enough if the cot beneath him doesn’t rock to the rhythm of the train, running laps around the city. And then, like a ghost himself, he arrives at Topping’s smoke-filled basement in Whitechapel.

Hangover, anticipation and impatience, forever sitting inside him like a torn, mix together into some kind of an ambiguous, languorous rage when he comes on the ring, the same way that mysterious man, that wiz who’s so fond of disappearing, comes every time just to watch him. A tiny nod is enough for Jacob. He puts his side instead of his abdomen under a blow, then throws someone over the shoulder and hits with the elbow. He fights dirty, there’s no honor in those fights, but people still honor him with another pint in a lousy bar, built of crates and boards that someone ripped from a fence outside. He leans, almost lying, on the bar counter, wiping his neck with his crumpled shirt, and addresses the back of the stranger’s head:

“Are you following me?”

The sense of danger from this man is rolling in hot waves, it’s so overwhelming that a single pint is not enough, and Jacob has to order an extra one. The danger hits him harder than the warmth of a burning warehouse filled with gunpowder. Jacob doesn’t know if it’s due to the horrible scar stretching down from the man’s temple almost to his chin; or maybe his wild eyes; or the way he holds himself and how different he is from the local rag-tag; or maybe it’s the way he smiles at Jacob, sharp and wide, and the way he looks, amused, at his flaunting body.

“Every performance of yours, my dear friend, as striking and powerful as they are.”

By the force of habit, Jacob tries to argue.

“These aren’t performances; disgraceful tussles more like.”

“This is art, and you master it so impeccably that I am forever left to wonder why London hasn’t spread at your feet yet.”

They stare at each other, and it’s almost tangible. Something stirs heavily inside Jacob, he thinks it’s beer he swallowed on an empty stomach. His neck grows unbearably hot under the twisted and sweat-soaked shirt. He wipes his palm on the trousers and reaches into that barely-foot-space between them; their knees are touching already.

“Jacob Frye.”

He craves to hear that roaring voice to turn his name into a thunder, and his wish comes true the next second.

“Extremely glad to meet you, Jacob,” he pulls one of his gloves off, the shake of his hand is tight and warm. “Maxwell Roth.”

The name doesn’t tell him anything. _“Maxwell”_ rolls against his tongue like a spoon of honey, while _“Roth”_ falls down like a “rot”; and for a brief moment he thinks, ten to one that it’s a fake name, and Jacob too should’ve introduced himself as Dorian or something, because _“it’s so unreasonable, Jacob”_ , and _“keep it low, Jacob”_ , and _“try not to attract attention this time, brother, dearest”_. But this purring growl, this swift _“Roth”_ − they cut Jacob’s thoughts off with one smooth move of an invisible blade. They sit there to the closing hours; Jacob had no idea that even Topping’s dumps had to be shut down for a while to sweep the hall, splash a dozen of water buckets on the ring, and shake the content of the rat-traps out into the filthy backyard. They talk so much it’s ridiculous; the third pint, already a bit stale, gets completely stale, forgotten, and Jacob gets too, barely keeping up. Maxwell asks where he learned to fight like this, and in a wink of an eye Jacob’s ready to tell him everything about his not quite eventful past, but he tells instead:

“It was the only way to keep one’s life together back home. Well, this and money,” he shrugs indifferently as if money doesn't mean much to him. People say there’s nothing shameful about being poor. But Jacob knows that being poor is deadly. Because he saw it himself, and still sees it every day.

“Well, it seems life has placed the right bets then,” Maxwell says, and the corners of his eyes wrinkle with a smile. Jacob averts his gaze for a second just to quickly lift it again. His ears are burning severely, but maybe in the dim light of lamps covered with flies it’s not quite visible.

They part at the first glimpse of dawn. For some reasons in the back of his head Jacob was expecting a private carriage, waiting for Maxwell in the alley, or at least that Maxwell would catch an early cab with just a click of his fingers. However, Maxwell Roth bids him farewell and casually walks up the street, diving into shadows and emerging in the circles of lantern glow. Jacob fixes Maxwell’s back with his eyes, as if otherwise he’ll disappear with a clap in a cloud of coal dust and sparkles; as if he will be forever swallowed by the city’s grayness. He fights an almost painful desire to climb onto the roofs and follow him discreetly, jumping over chimneys. A random stranger gnarls at him for standing stock-still in the middle of the road, and Jacob is almost grateful to him.

A plume of smoke is not that far already, crawling and creeping like a fat, soft caterpillar. The other day Jacob heard some weirdo telling a story to the stray kids, about a smoking caterpillar who loved to ask stupid questions. There’re all kinds of madmen on these streets... Jacob’s sitting with his legs swinging over the ground far below. The morning sun is dull; he looks at it rising through the smog, until the puffer runs closer to him and Bertha rumbles heavily. Jacob hates questions. Maxwell Roth asked him a lot, and not even for a moment did Jacob feel like not answering any of them. He launches his rope at the pole on the opposite side of the railway and jumps off it onto the last car, almost slipping from under his boots.

“Jacob Frye!”

He hasn’t even stretched his legs on the sofa, and he can swear there’s more father in that voice than Evie herself.

“Where have you been?!”

“Ah, you know,” he leans back on the pillows, looking out for Greenie, because he’d come quite in handy if he interrupts them to talk about ancient manuscripts or the less ancient, though still crumbling dried plants instead. “Here... and there.”

“ _‘There’?_ ...Jacob!”

He wiggles a little to scoop money from his pockets, and puts a messy stack on the safe somewhere behind him. Evie is not to be bribed that easily, but she softens at least and will unlikely go the whole way of lecturing him on his behavior, which is quite far from what a hereditary assassin is anticipated to act like. Jacob is almost sure his hereditary was the only reason that made him an assassin, he just didn’t know the other ways, not the templars’ ways, to hell with the templars, just _the other_ , without all those brotherhoods, orders and some obscure ideals. He is very sure though that he could easily become anybody else, but he has no idea who exactly that would be. He lied to Maxwell that he’s working for a small Curiosity Shop, and Maxwell said that in this case the shop definitely lives up to its name.

They do meet again, of course. Jacob sidesteps Topping and his gaudy attire, to catch the face in the corner, to nod at each other, like they’re up to something only they know about; and finally to go and fight for four rounds in a row. Everything falls apart at the second one though. Because that goner in front of him, slippery like a street cat, has a tattoo on his shoulder − a fist with a knife. The Blighter smiles at him, knowingly. Jacob has killed dozens of their kind, and it won’t be tricky now to just knock him out and send rolling on the floor, he only has to restrain himself a little.

Somehow, Jacob is the one to end up on the floor: he’s seeing stars, his nape is ringing, and two veiny hands are gripping his throat like the bulldog’s jaws, and it seems he’s about to gulp down his own Adam’s apple. Jacob buckles with his entire body. His heart is thumping somewhere at the root of his tongue. Jacob gives in to his own instincts; he grabs the head in front of him and turns it in a quick, sharp move. Then for a minute − or a year maybe − he’s lying in a half-conscious numbness under the weight of a lump body.

Topping backs away from him, skillfully avoiding dead ends and corners, moving straight to the doors, the main ones, the widest ones. He swears he didn’t know anything, just like he didn’t know about the pocket knife back then. Jacob manages to make him pay twice as much as the bets were, and it’s the least Topping can do to justify himself. Maxwell’s waiting near the empty beer barrels, with a couple of shots, filled with something colorless. Jacob downs the closest one, while Maxwell is telling him, as if painting a piece of art, with his words being the pigments, and Jacob being the canvas − telling him what he looked like, a pure and untamed energy of chaos. Jacob pshaws doubtfully.

“I broke his neck.”

“For it was certainly deserved, my dear.”

“Yeah, but we have a fight club here, not a butchery.”

He reaches for the second shot, then startles unwillingly, as if suddenly laced with electricity from one of those fiddly gadgets of Bell, and stiffens under a palm, gently sliding over his shoulder and between his shoulder blades, up to his nape. For a moment he is completely lost. Then Maxwell suggests they leave, now, and Jacob stares at him like he just confessed that he saw the Great Fire of 1666 with his very eyes and that the crows of Tower started it in the first place. Jacob remembers how to breathe again once Maxwell adds _“to stroll in the fresh air”_ and chuckles huskily, because the only thing in this city worth to be called _“fresh”_ is newspapers − _“stealthily, brother, meant the front pages wouldn’t scream about it early in the morning”_. Jacob takes a step to follow him, then turns around belatedly to snatch the rest of the gin.

Night Southwark is truly the best place to die at, because death is fast and easy there, and even once the daytime comes, the passerby would look past a body, which was silently knifed in the darkness and left sitting behind a pile of trash. Jacob automatically slides his fingers under the cuff to tighten the straps of the hidden blade, then thoroughly pulls the sleeves of his shirt and jacket down. He knows that one way or another Maxwell will notice and ask inevitably, and that someday the part of his life where he’s an assassin will intertwine with the part where he is not. For now, he is the one who’s asking, with a nod at the rusty ladder along the windows, and without calling things by their right names; he asks if maybe Maxwell wants to, or is able to, or is better to− Maxwell Roth throws his head back to glance at the roofs, which are just a tint darker than the sky above; then he bursts into laughter and easily pulls himself up onto the lower landing. He’s the first to reach the top, and Jacob jokes, finally climbing there too, that is because he’s yielded; or maybe because he was gaping at Maxwell for too long down there. Maxwell is lean and gnarly, but − Jacob searches his memory for the fitting word, the one that’s never been applied to Jacob himself, − he is _graceful_. Jacob stares at Maxwell’s back every time the man’s a couple steps ahead, and it’s really the worst idea for he should watch his own steps and watch at the streets gaps between the buildings, at the abrupt inclines and rough joints of the roofs, but Jacob just can’t help himself.

It’s so bizarre to see the city from this height, even the pigeons are uncomfortable to fly at; to see it with someone who’s not Greenie, so enthusiastic to patronize everyone along the shortest road, _“Look, I am oh so familiar with the city! Careful, Ms. Frye, there’s a step over there!”_ ; not Evie, always like a cat on hot bricks and has no appreciation for a little chit-chat on the run; not George, who every now and then grabbed him by the shoulder, _“wait, not now, it’s too early, have patience”_ , and rolled his eyes whenever Jacob managed to break free and escape. Thames is stretching in front of them, merging with her banks, with the mist, the smoke, the bridges; the opposite side is barely visible, this one is busy with factory pipes, working forcefully as if the day wasn’t enough for them. Obviously, it’s never enough for the man whose name is lined up on them. Maxwell nods with agreement.

“Starrick has got his hand on everything he could reach; the rest he is about to choke, and I am afraid this part he’s enjoying the most.”

They’re standing shoulder to shoulder, touching, when Maxwell suddenly nudges him gently, − Jacob’s heart skips a beat, − and offers:

“Would you like to pay them a warm visit? I’m dying to know what they are so busy with at such an hour.”

Jacob blinks at him, dumbstruck.

“What, now? _There?_ ”

“Right now! To the very heart of theirs!”

Jacob has never in his life fallen from a roof, but at the exact moment of climbing down the crying waterspout, he feels like he’s hanging in the air and quickly closing in with the ground.

They hop over the fence unnoticed. The place is poky and deceivingly abandoned, as if trying to blend with the wharves, cranes and bigger factories. They hide on a building, wrapped in its shadows, and for a minute watch the drowsy guards patrolling here and there, before Jacob leaps right over the head of one of them and offers his hand − unconsciously, without even thinking about it − to Maxwell, who accepts it to keep his balance. There’re no windows on the roof of the warehouse, but Jacob finds a tiny hole the size of a penny.

“What do you see?”

“I’m not su−” he lifts his eyes at Maxwell, who’s leaning down to him a little, and feels like a complete idiot. “It’s… some kind of grass in there?”

They try to open some shutters on the top floor. Maxwell carries weapons too, but he does it openly, a gun high on his hip, fixed with tight straps. He pulls a knife out of thin air and carefully slides it in to kick off the latches on the other side. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and he’s surely doing it not for the first − and not for the hundredth time either. It’s bright inside, dump and stuffy, and it smells strongly of a dug-up ground, the same way it smelled in Crawley on the rainy days or at the old cemetery, and of coal in the furnaces, burning at half strength. They silently lean on the handrail and, both equally puzzled, look at the rows of tubs with green shrubs sticking out of them.

“Tea? What, he decided to make it easy and built his own plantation over here, on Thames? Seems like he’s using it for watering too.” Jacob nods at the pipes snaking out from the floor and a couple of dirty fire hoses lying in a muddy puddle.

“No, my dear,” Maxwell says as they run down the stairs. “However, these ones are from China as well.”

Jacob kicks one bag in the pile and gets overflown with a sweet manure reek, mixing with another, even more mawkish one coming from the flowers, which look like bullhorns or that unfinished device in Bell’s workshop − he intends to make it emit sound or something like this. Maxwell plucks one of them, brings it closer to his face, smells and crushes with his glove before letting it fall under his feet.

“These are devil’s trumpets. Hallucinogenic and poisonous. However, Indians believe it to be a highly effective aphrodisiac.”

“And you found it out… how exactly? Personal experience?”

They giggle, and while searching the corners of the greenhouse for some clues, for something that will enlighten them on Starrick’s plans, Jacob thinks he is quite affected already − by the Devil himself, not the flowers. In a small room they rummage the drawers, and Maxwell flips through the receipt book, some pages referring to the name of _Elliotson_. Jacob can’t recall if he actually heard it some time ago or not; the mentions of Elliotson don’t really hint at anything specific. He says the first thing that comes to his mind:

“Manure is quite flammable.”

Maxwell’s eyes lit up with something wild, and Jacob feels the familiar wave of heat, coming from the inside of him as well as from Maxwell in front of him. They drag and empty the sacks in the middle of the greenhouse, and it’s sort of regrettable, Jacob thinks, exchanging glances with Maxwell, that he doesn’t have his gloves, too. They throw papers from the balcony, watching white landing on green, then carefully shovel burning coals and leave them under and on the tables, the first one breaking out in flames like it’s made of straws. Hypnotized, they stare until the wooden floor starts crackling and a silk neckerchief covers Jacob’s nose and mouth, tightening on the back of his head.

“Don’t breathe in.”

Oh, but he does − deeply, loudly, filling his lungs with Maxwell’s smell and rich perfume. His knees almost go slack, when they finally push and open the heavy gates and run outside, followed by the roaring fire and surprised shouts from the darkness around. Someone shoots at them, haphazard, and misses. Jacob takes off into the direction of Westminster, but is caught by Maxwell’s hand and then follows him back into Southwark. His heart is pounding twice louder than Bertha in a tunnel, and his blood is almost boiling. Then, suddenly stopped by a dead end, they laugh and try to take a breath, and climb up to look at what they’ve done. Gray smoke crawls in the opposite direction, carried by the wind; Jacob’s thoughts are light and empty, as if the wind took them too. He stares at Maxwell and Maxwell only, wishing to bury his face into the now exposed crook of his neck, between the opened halves of the collar, and to be clenched in Maxwell’s embrace. Maxwell smiles at him.

“Excellent job, Jacob, dear! Performed in the best way possible.”

Jacob returns to the train early in the morning, during those brief hours when the puffer is resting in the sidings and every soul inside is definitely fast asleep. However, he bites his own fingers with the neckerchief wrapped around them and a brooch pricking into his palm, to stiffen the sounds he makes, and still he can’t help but moan into the pillows. He quickly falls asleep, and he wakes up even quicker − from a smack of a rolled up paper on his ear.

“Is this your doing?!”

He almost jumps, then sizes up the situation and slips down the back of his sofa to remain like this while Evie is pacing back and forth, making it really hard to understand which direction the train is moving in exactly. Somewhere on the edge of his vision Greenie sticks out as a silent supportive force; the very sight of him makes Jacob yawn.

“Strand! Westminster! Half of the city has gone insane in just a night! Everybody in City is talking about ghosts, strange voices and visions all over north of Thames!”

“...Well, maybe at least Dickens will thank me later.”

“So, it _was_ you? I mean, who else could it be,” she turns to Greenie, who vigorously nods with the most serious expression ever. “Are you out of your mind, Jacob? There are children out there and elders! Animals after all!”

He feels sick in his stomach.

“Someone died?”

“No! Fortunately!” Greenie peels himself off the bookcase and puts his palms together in a gesture of a plea to Jacob, or Evie, which is unlikely, or to some sort of his own gods who have nothing to do with any of this. “However, the smoke did add a lot of difficulties to the lives of many. We thought at first there was a break from the Lambeth Asylum...”

Jacob rolls his eyes. That’s so like them, to make a fuss about nothing.

“It’s devil’s trumpets. The rumor goes its smoke is good for asthma.”

“ _Asthma_ , Jacob?!”

They forget about him the very second that O’Dea and Ned join them on the next station, each talking in their own way about the same burnt greenhouse, although their tone is just the opposite. Turns out, the incident will serve them well; the plants, it seems, are one of the main ingredients along with opium for that draff that Starrick dignifies as a soothing syrup for every illness; it is, apparently, a kick to his shin, a tiny one, yes, but a very, very unpleasant one, too. Jacob lifts his hands in a Gallic shrug, disguising a smirk, but inside − oh, inside he is _triumphant_. Evie purses her lips.

For two days straight they are hiding on the roofs, tracking the deliveries and Elliotson, who just happened to be of great importance to their investigation after Jacob briefly mentioned him and got reprobated for this with a harsh _“Oh, so you’ve_ been _listening, then? A miracle indeed”_. For two days straight Jacob is dying to get away, and the moment the opportunity comes, he hastes away, almost giving himself out. Then he stops and looks around the buildings, the bald patch of a square below, the yellow spot of a glowing _Abbot’s Cocoa_ sign. He feels lost because he has no idea about where to search for Maxwell. The realization comes with a cold sweat gathering on his back and his guts tying in a knot. The need − the desire to see Maxwell almost makes him dizzy. Without anything better to do, he climbs down to the streets to find the gamin kids and ask them where Topping is taking his bets tonight.

When he’s almost at the place − somewhere not very deep down under the paving stones, a little bit to the left the crowd is cheering muffledly, − he sees a coach, slowly squeezing into the narrow bystreet, the black horses are snorting and foamy, forcing him to back off. The very moment Jacob is ready to jump off their way, with his back flat to the wall, the varnished door of the carriage swings open and the darkness of the cabin croaks his name out. He hops in without even thinking. Maxwell smiles, squinting his eyes, almost closing them, and leans on Jacob’s knee. Jacob feels a sharp shot of a thrill, a tiny shameful spasm of impatience and desire − of impatience and desire to tell him what a success their little mischief turned out to become. He exhales with his mouth, swallows everything that doesn’t matter and bites the insides of his cheek so as not to crumble under the touch. He hopes that maybe Maxwell just knows it all already.

They follow his old pattern: every other day they meet at Topping’s here and there, though they rarely stay for the fights, wandering through the darkest corners of the city instead, for hours and hours. They do whatever pleases them. If it works out, then it’s right; if it doesn’t, then they will find another way. That’s why the boxes of Starrick’s sugar meet their end at the bottom of Thames. And the heavily armed escort loses its informant in the middle of an empty street. And the Blighters suddenly disappear from the marketplace where they were leeching on the sellers’ money; Maxwell’s aim is true, he sends the shots with one eye closed, right to their foreheads, under the brims of their bowlers. Maxwell says he has his own reasons to fight Starrick, and Jacob doesn’t ask for details: that prick has plagued the life out of almost everyone in the city.

Evie mocks if he’s going to amaze Topping with a shirt of such cleanliness, and he snaps back that he’s just out of the dirty ones and that he can’t take the robe off Greenie, for this part he’ll leave to Evie herself, in a surge of incredible generosity. Then he rushes out and away, giving his sister no chance to parry − and literally, too − his attack. Topping, as if in spite, doesn’t let him make a single step: he radiates with a smile and points at the chalk board, covered with names and numbers from one end to the other. Jacob can’t find his own one, but he sees a _Hawk_ on it and involuntarily touches that place on his chest where a hawk is tattooed. Then he spots a _Raven_ a bit lower and lifts his eyes, knowing precisely who this one is supposed to be. Maxwell almost jumps with excitement.

“To fight? With you? There?” Jacob points at the fenced ring, splattered and trampled with blood all over. “Are you crazy?”

He recalls Maxwell telling him about those times he was a boxer, but boxing and fighting like this are different things, and it’s just too much, and Jacob’s pulse is galloping like he has already done a couple of rounds. Maxwell’s eyes are absolutely wild.

“And even if I am, my dear, isn’t it a delightful way to approach one’s madness?”

Jacob smiles, bewildered; he isn’t sure, he doesn’t really want to, but Maxwell winks at him and says, leaning closer as if entrusting him with a secret:

“Don’t spare me. For I am not going to spare you.”

And maybe Jacob has gone crazy too and just hasn’t noticed, because in Maxwell’s tone he feels something that sounds like a promise, and because he responds with _“alright”_.

The fight is weird. From the very minute when he hesitates at the last moment and puts his brass knuckles on, and till the first punch that doesn’t come from him. Maxwell holds his gaze and moves in the most unpredictable way, nothing in common with those who prefer to immediately lunge at Jacob, hoping to crash him amain; or those who circle endlessly to confuse him. Maxwell rewards him with a humiliating cuffing for his idleness and, when Jacob jumps away, riled up, Maxwell tricks him with a spurious blow and hits him in the kidneys − and hell, it hurts. Jacob gasps. Irritation, some kind of very unhealthy ardor and all of what has been desperately seething inside of him for the recent weeks without finding any release − it all flings him from a cautious defense to a thoughtless attack. Maxwell evades each of them, like it doesn’t cost him anything, like he has suddenly become incorporeal. Jacob can hear his own teeth gritting fiercely. He tries to outsmart Maxwell and copies his moves, thinking that maybe he’ll take him by surprise, and he even succeeds at first. Then he bends in half, falling on his knee. His eyes are watering; he takes a breath, again, and again, trying in vain to suck some air in, just an ounce at least; his lungs are burning.

He lours at Maxwell, watching his soft steps along the ring border, before standing up and clenching his teeth. Humiliation and anger are the worst stimulants; they follow him for his entire life, fiddling with him just as they want to, and that’s why Jacob isn’t prudent and sly, but acts depending on the current situation, mostly when it’s far out of control. Jacob allows another punch to land on him just to grab the swift arm and lean on with his shoulder and the weight of his body, and Maxwell loses his balance − and gains it back as soon and easy as an acrobat. Jacob stumbles past him, barely makes a tuck to roll clumsily, then quickly covers his throat from a blow, gets a kick to his ribs and backs off. Maxwell is like a whip: he lashes Jacob’s pride, he’s everywhere at once, he’s fast and if he doesn’t punch Jacob right away, then he just forces him to stay away.

Their strengths are obviously unequal, but Jacob would rather die than succumb, and so the fight continues. He aims at Maxwell’s face, and chest, and legs − he’s blocked, again, once more; every third blow turns against him. He breaks out of a hold which was intended to close on Maxwell; he endures a sharp strike at the collarbone and tumbles down after the next one, which comes from behind, on the inner side of his knee. Jacob gets up, limping. Maxwell sends him back on the floor.

The third time he doesn’t get up. His cheeks are stinging with defeat; he turns away when Maxwell leans over him and offers a hand; instead he just crawls on all his fours to the edge of the ring and pulls himself up on an askew fence, while Topping announces a winner. The hall begins to stir with shouts of those who just lost their bets − the noise is so loud that Jacob’s head seems to be falling apart along with his body.

“This is not fair! You’re a professional boxer!”

“These are underground fights, my dear, they cannot be fair by the very definition of theirs.”

Maxwell is disheveled and flush, and wears a fresh bruise, the one Jacob has managed to leave on his left cheekbone, mirroring the scar on the right; his eyes are sparkling, and his lips are stretched into a thoughtful smile, but Jacob is so incredibly angry that none of it matters right now. Maxwell walks away in a quick stride, through the backdoor, past the smoking lantern and down the alley, leading to the main street, which is still busy with people strolling by despite the late hour. Jacob has no choice but to plod after him.

“But you were fucking somersaulting back there, like in a bloody circus!”

“It _is_ true,” Maxwell stops exactly at the spot where the glow behind them and the glim in front of them can’t reach, takes out a cigar in the most carefree way possible and lights it up. “I did run away with a chapiteau once, and we travelled far and wide for many, many years through the country and outside of it…”

Jacob stares at him, furious; he has no idea if Maxwell just came up with all that nonsense or told the truth. He leans flaccidly on the wall: its every roughness and every seam between the bricks dig into his shoulder, only making it worse, but leastways it’s some sort of support for his body. Maxwell smokes, watching the occasional passerby. At this exact moment Jacob almost hates him.

“Just imagine how blind they are, Jacob,” when he calls him by the name, his voice soft and low, it relieves the pique a little. “They look past and through, without seeing anything at all. Anyone at all. We are in the plain sight, under their noses, and still we remain invisible…”

Jacob follows a gig with laughing passengers with his eyes. Maxwell’s sudden melancholy and the train of thought are unclear to him. He absentmindedly watches the unfinished cigar falling right where its ashes landed a minute ago, the points of Maxwell’s shoes turning into his direction, quickly lifts his gaze, and then freezes, while the realization hits him hard and makes him press his shoulder blades to the wall. Maxwell steps closer, nose to nose. Jacob doesn’t even try: he shudders, his face starts burning, his breath cuts short and comes back uneven and hitching. He surrenders so fast that he doesn’t even think about it. Maxwell holds his palm to Jacob’s cheek. It’s warm and smooth in a glove.

“I can’t accept this victory as mine entirely. You were unyielding; you could stop any moment, but you didn’t. Your persistence and astonishing strength−”

Jacob’s almost drunk.

“Max− please, Maxwell…”

He knows if now Maxwell decides to let go of him, he’ll just tumble down. He’s shaking, he can barely think, clinging to the lapels somewhere down on Maxwell’s chest, they’re so close that the buttons of his vest dig into Jacob’s stomach.

Maxwell kisses him deeply, their noses almost smashing. He wastes no time to be careful or polite; their kiss is all hunger and swallowed, wining moans. Jacob startles from the knee slipping between his legs, only to press down on it, then again, harder. His inarticulate pleas turn into wet bites, which Maxwell returns a hundred times rougher, merciless to him.

Jacob’s body is aching, he’s exhausted, falling apart, can’t even put letters together to make out Maxwell’s name; he presses his temple to Maxwell’s when he feels the fingers coming down on him, gripping through the cloth. He breathes noisily, almost hanging on Maxwell, clenching his shoulders, slipping into the protective nook of his neck, into the cool folds of his neckerchief, getting damp and warm under Jacob’s gaping mouth. Despair forces his body to respond to the moving fingers in a jerky motion, and it’s still not enough, until it’s too much and he flinches, chocking on his own voice. Somewhere up there, Maxwell’s holding him in a guarding embrace.

Jacob needs time. Perhaps, a bit more than the clock face of Big Ben can fit. It feels as if he’s just been dragged along the railroad from Whitechapel to Lambeth and back. His ears are ringing, his shirt sticks to him like a wet rag, his cap is someplace under their feet, his skin and hair, almost dripping with sweat, are chilly of the evening air.

He makes a deep inhale and finally pushes himself off Maxwell’s shoulder with his forehead, then lifts his eyes. An expression that Maxwell looks at him with − it’s unfamiliar to Jacob, for no one has ever looked at him like _this_. He blindly follows the hand, rising to wipe his lips and chin, and Maxwell caresses them with his thumb, his half-closed eyes smiling.

Jacob returns home as in a fog, relying mostly on his habit and legs, rather than his temporarily useless senses and intuition. This night he doesn’t sleep, tossing and turning and wandering around restlessly. Phantom hands of Maxwell Roth never leave him, locking on his throat, his mind, his heart, until he somehow manages to doze off in a pile of documents scattered on the table.

It’s actually a miracle that he wakes up and gets out before everyone starts to slam the doors, beat the air and try to lecture him. As quietly as possible he warms up some water to wash in the freight car, then rummages in the boxes of their personal, always silent supplier of some questionable things, searching for an ointment to help with his bruises. He’s almost done, when Greenie catches him at this humiliating process.

“Holy− Was you run over by a horse?! Are you okay, Frye?”

 _I was,_ Jacob thinks with a grimace. He jerks away when Green attempts to help with the scratches on his back, and dryly asks him not to tell Evie about it.

“I wasn’t going to.”

His solidarity isn’t a surprise, but Jacob still examines him with a heavy gaze, before asking for another favor: to stay on watch before the entire train decides to come looking for supplies, bullets or devil knows what else. Greenie keeps turning his head back and forth and sighing with soft disapproval, but just can’t stay out of it:

“Listen, Jacob, don’t you think you’re acting kind of too extreme? Do you really have to−“

“I do,” Jacob snaps and hides a grin. They’re obviously talking about completely different things.

Green hesitates for a minute, then finally spills it out:

“Ms. Attaway isn’t worth you beating yourself up over her. We didn’t know that she would−”

“Wow, Henry, take it easy, would you? Unless you want me to tear up over here.”

It’s been long enough for the name to stop cutting like a knife to his back, but, hell, it’s still none of Green’s goddamn business, so, with a couple of unceremonious jokes below the belt Jacob discourages him to go all sentimental on him and to cultivate sympathy in all its pathetic aspects. Still, way too compassionate, Greenie keeps looking funny at him even when it’s now three of them, spreading a city map on the table and estimating the scope of endless work. Jacob drifts out of conversation. On the paper he finds a bunch of clustered buildings, a line of the main street, a thin branch of the alley, and for a second he’s almost sure that the rhythm of the wheels on the rail joints clearly says _“Roth-Roth-Roth”_. That’s why he misses the entire point of discussion and obediently agrees to go wherever they want him to and find whatever is needed and, presumably, important.

He mistakenly believes he needs to clear his head, or something like this. The mistake is that the only thing he needs right now is Maxwell Roth, and after the twilight has already fallen, in the middle of shouldering through the Topping’s crowd, he knows exactly who it is hooking him by the elbow and easily guiding away from there.

“Quickly!” Maxwell exclaims, his eyes shining feverishly. “We’ll make it if we hurry up!”

Jacob forgets to ask who − the stray kids? beggars? Topping himself? − report to Maxwell where to find him every time, because in the end of the day is it really that important, huh? He climbs on the driver’s seat next to Maxwell, takes the reins, offered to him, and they dash to the quay, where, according to what Maxwell overheard, a shipment of opium solution is being secretly transferred to Starrick.

“I believe the moment is perfect enough for us to come and borrow it, what do you say?”

He could say that his plans didn’t actually include anything like _this_ and if only Maxwell would let him− However, he forgets it all as well, because the opportunity is very tempting, and he’s so fucking skilled at stealing carriages and is in good standing with Ned, who usually asks him to do exactly this, and the Blighters are always so pathetic and helpless to catch up with him, falling away after a couple of miles. He brags that Maxwell came to the right man, and Maxwell nods, telling him that he’s never doubted it. Then they hide and they wait for the last clinking boxes to be safely transferred ashore.

Everything happens in a wink of an eye. Without saying a word, speaking only with half-gestures, they silently get rid from the closest guards and the driver, and jump on the coachbox almost simultaneously, only to find out there is the fourth one, sneaking behind the carriage and aiming his gun at them. At Maxwell in particular. Jacob moves quickly, throws his hand up and shoots a dart from under Maxwell’s elbow. He doesn’t even think. He just acts the way he must. The bullet misses with a deafening rumble, the horses rush away, scared, to the Westminster Bridge, and the pier starts whirring with turmoil.

There’s a tail following them, the splinters are spraying around, their ears are filled with glassy jingle. When the horses gallop onto the bridge, it’s no doubt anymore − they’ve been expected. Two wagons are already turning sideways further up the road to cut them off.

“Seems like Starrick’s lost his patience, finally,” Jacob sneers nervously; he guides the horses to ram the barricade, it doesn’t matter anymore if the bottles will be shattered, they just have to get out of here, fast.

Maxwell’s spinning in his seat, shooting the ones behind them, there’s nowhere to duck, and he’s literally folding in two, and the second when he abruptly falls, Jacob is finally scared for him to be shot. The next one he realizes it was a rifle in front of them that just killed one of the horses and sent the carriage flying, and now, rolled over and in the middle of the bridge, they are surrounded. Such a stupid death, even for Jacob.

He snatches Bell’s electric bombs from his belt, ripping them right with the fastenings, and throws somewhere to just get rid of them rather than actually use − if they’re lucky, the bombs will find their targets anyway, − and yanks at Maxwell’s hand, the one he’s holding his pistol in, ready to shoot the driver of the coach which is closing in on them.

“Do you trust me?”

“Completely.”

In a second they get on the parapet and barely look down before they leap into the oily darkness of Thames. Jacob did it only once, to gain on a missed barge: a ferry almost crashed him, he swallowed what seemed like a gallon of water, and he was pretty determined then to never do−

The river is freezing and slams out the living daylight out of him, dragging to the bottom, the sky and ground swapping once and again. Jacob emerges to the surface, searching for Maxwell in panic, black on black, and fists him by the collar the moment he appears just behind Jacob’s back.

“Dammit, Maxwell! Next time you wish to die, write me a letter!”

“I sure will, my dearest.”

Jacob kisses him first, and it comes out poorly, because the current is hauling them into deep, and they’re shaking of cold, adrenaline and laughter, but, for the devil’s sake, it is worth every bullet shot at both of them.

They enter the city catacombs through the riverside passages and use them to sneak into Lambeth, into an attic, rented to Jacob by an old widow, who drinks a lot and never asks questions. He stays here on very rare occasions; it’s a miserable place, a sorry dump, but it’s _his_ dump, with a lock on the door, and it’s still much more than just a sofa in a car, constantly flooded with people − _“Really, Jacob? At least take your boots off…”_ And he definitely has never brought someone else here. His cheeks are burning hot, as he starts the fire in a tiny stove to maybe warm up a little and dry their clothes. There’s nothing to amaze Maxwell with; only bare walls, stocks of simple food in case of emergency and not even a single bottle − nothing to really spend some time with, only to pass it.

He startles from a brief caress to his hair, and tilts his head back and then to the side to watch Maxwell undressing. He is lean and wiry and has a lot of scars: stars left by bullets, a knotty one from a seemingly nasty wound, a bunch from the knives, here and there. Jacob wouldn’t be surprised to know each of them has a unique and quite unbelievable story, the kind Maxwell loves to tell him. He hesitates, but puts his clothes off too, wrings the sleeves of his jacket, the legs of his trousers, and sits on the bed, which sags almost to the floor under his weight. And when Maxwell approaches, everything inside of him shrinks like a spring that doesn’t know how to loosen up again. His intuition tells him to lie down, propping himself on the elbows, but Maxwell Roth doesn’t move from where he stands.

“Not here, Jacob, my dear, not like this.”

He flushes, abashed, and sharply straightens himself up, and the more he focuses on his failure on the bridge, and ridiculousness of his pathetic shelter, and straightforwardness of his expectations, the more his shame grows, but at the same time it feels like a load off his shoulders, and the thought of Maxwell probably noticing it, makes it only worse. He insists:

“Does the place actually matter?”

“It does indeed, Jacob, believe me.”

Maxwell’s fingers reach to gently fondle his cheek, and he can hear it with his skin − the way his stubble rustles under the fingertips.

“Oh really? It didn’t seem to, the last time in that backstreet.”

“…Is it so?”

Maxwell thoughtfully traces the shape of Jacob’s lips, before suddenly catching him by the chin, pulling him closer and − Jacob doesn’t even have a second to realize what’s going on − down, pressing on his shoulder. Jacob falls on his knees and lifts his eyes; Maxwell’s hand is tight on his cheeks, forcing his mouth to fall open. Jacob swallows.

“I don’t know how to−”

“I will teach you. Careful with your teeth.”

So, the first thing Jacob does is completely forgetting about being careful, causing Maxwell to flinch and grab him by the hair. Jacob moans.

They rest in a damp bed devil knows where, covered with a blanket that doesn’t smell like house, but moldy basement, sheltered by the walls too thin to hide the sounds coming from the outside as well as the inside. Jacob’s jaw and the corners of his lips are sore, so he lets Maxwell do the talking − on and on, in a whisper, breathing out into the crown of his head. He listens to the voice, hoarsely rumbling in the chest under his cheek, and to the coals, echoing it behind the small cast-iron door.

Jacob sleeps like a deadman, although even dead he would probably roam the streets to the delight of Dickens and his strange friends, inspiring legends to be written about him, one twice more incredible than the other. He reluctantly wakes up and immediately, still sleepy, drowns in a momentary burst of panic caused by the foreign feeling: he is completely buried under Maxwell’s body, literally enwrapped by him, skin on skin everywhere it’s physically possible, and it’s so insane that his heart sinks to his belly and stays there once he meets Maxwell’s gaze. Maxwell puts a kiss on his shoulder, his neck, his jawline − Jacob groans a little, − his lips, briefly, between his collarbones, on his stomach − Jacob flutters, − and along the inner side of his thigh. Jacob shivers reflexively and snorts, stiffing a snicker.

“You mustache…”

Maxwell raises his brow.

“Yes?”

The sight is just unbearable: Maxwell’s face between his legs with a sly emerald squint of his eyes. Jacob falls back on the pillow, fisting the sheets beneath him, too lightheaded to catch up with Maxwell Roth.

The bliss is so strong that, while Maxwell already puts his coat on, Jacob still loiters with the trousers, smiling foolishly to himself. They talk and joke, until Jacob finally asks, out of place and head-on:

“How can I find you? To hell with Topping, there must be another place!”

“There _is_ a place,” Maxwell nods, thoroughly adjusting his gloves, before reaching under the lapel to put a piece of thick paper, adorned with intricate lettering, into Jacob’s hand. Pulled right from a cigarette-case, the card smells of Maxwell’s tobacco, and Jacob involuntarily licks his lips. He reads the text on it, his brows crawling up.

“The Gentlemen’s… _Eccentric_ Club?”

He adds _“who would have ever thought…”_ with the most shit-eating grin of his, but it doesn’t affect Maxwell even in the slightest: he just smiles, enthusiastic to tell about travelers, writers and inventors, who usually gather at the Club. However, Jacob doubts.

“And they’ll just let me in? Just like this?”

Maxwell leans down to him, closing his fingers on Jacob’s ones, holding the card.

“Not only they will let you in, my dearest, but they will welcome you with open arms as their most valuable and outstanding member. I can vouch,” he lowers his voice to the conspiratorial whisper, “none of them has ever performed such a leap − a successful one, I must accentuate − from the Westminster Bridge.”

Jacob dips his free hand into the liquid-like silk of the neckerchief and yanks Maxwell into a kiss, clumsy from their equally arch smiles. The archness is extremely hard to wipe off his face, even when Jacob is back to Bertha, and Evie darts stern looks at him, and Greenie explains a layout of the former assassin’s mansion, the quite simple plan of which is spread right under their noses, and Agnes comes to complain about their new coal supplier. Jacob can barely sit still, so he almost fights Evie for the right to run and check O’Dea’s lead about another factory full of exploited orphans.

The next evening he’s in Strand, and approaches a cab with a pretended idleness. There were many of them in the recent hours, while he was circling the park opposite the Club building, bored with the unchanging picture of passerby and a fountain. Many, but none of them stopped at the main entrance, under the broad balcony. Maxwell dismisses the coach and opens the door for Jacob in a welcoming gesture.

Jacob almost holds his breath. He doesn’t make head or tail of gentlemen’s clubs, and the _“gentleman”_ itself is the last word to apply to him. He only knows they have some rules, ridiculous and absurd at times, and he also knows that following any kind of rules isn’t exactly his… rule. Somewhere behind Maxwell chuckles quietly at this little joke and immediately switches to someone else with a greeting. Jacob looks around; he doesn’t really stand out but he doesn’t belong here either. Everyone’s wearing fancy suits and smoke a lot − pipes, mostly; a group next to the fireplace is engaged into a heated argument and completely abandoned its poker; Evie once tried to elucidate its main principles to him, but he still fails to imagine things duller than card games. He unwittingly overhears a story told in a company near him by a loud bearded man with golden teeth: something about sea journeys, and a giant killer narwhal, vandalizing ships in Pacific Ocean. Then Maxwell calls his name in a soft voice, and they go up to the next storey.

Maxwell’s room is the one the balcony of which oversees the park. With its massive doors going all the way up to the ceiling and curtains hanging heavily to the very floor, the room looks like a theatrical scenery and doesn’t actually feel like Maxwell − frankly, only Maxwell here does. It’s filled with fine furniture, various paintings in rich frames, stuffed exotic birds, tiny statues on the shelves, books, thick carpets, and mottled pillows on the canopy bed. He’d think that Greenie would definitely like it here, but can only think how impossible it is to eat all the dishes, served on the table for two beside the window.

They have wine for dinner, so good Jacob wants to drink the entire bottle, but it’s placed on the farthest side and Maxwell doesn’t let him to; and meat so tasty that Jacob can worry not about its origin. Their conversation is almost worldly, and the entire scene, comparing to his usual messy chases after Starrick over the roofs of London, is sort of ironical, if Jacob knows something about irony. He asks if Maxwell has ever sailed Pacific or been to America, and Maxwell’s eyes are shining when he says:

“To my utter regret, I have not. However, I am certain this gap will be easy and, may I add, nice to fill in a worthy company.”

Jacob leans on the back of his chair.

“Company of what sort?”

Maxwell smiles over his wine glass and tilts it a little in Jacob’s direction.

“Of the one sitting in front of me.”

The heat is creeping up his neck and cheeks, and they both end up in the bed before Jacob can linger on the thought of travelling with Maxwell Roth and realize how incredibly tempting the very idea of it sounds and how incredibly long the sailing would last.

Maxwell isn’t quite gentle with him, isn’t gentle at all, and Jacob keeps fidgeting, moving and lifting his hips to try and adjust, and claws convulsively at the soft pillows in attempt to follow their patterns with his eyes and maybe distract himself a little. Maxwell kisses him on the lips, taking away the last bits of his breath and, perhaps, his conscious too. Jacob feels cold sweat gathering on his skin and some kind of a blunt pleasure under it, which comes in the end, way long after Maxwell’s. His stomach stiffens, his fingers clench in a steely grip, and he flounces helplessly under the touch that pins him to the bed.

He’s still completely exhausted, devastated and lost inside his own contradictory sensations, but Maxwell wants to change the sheets and Jacob has to groan and roll from left to right and back again to let him do this. Then, too lazy to move again, he’s just lying there when the fresh satin sheet covers him entirely and everything turns cherry-red. Maxwell chuckles.

“Glad you’re having a good time,” Jacob says caustically, and falls silent, exhaling through his mouth to calm down, when a palm sets low on his stomach, then slowly slides up onto his solar plexus and chest, a chilly snaky caress to his seething body.

This night he sleeps like a log, snuggling tightly to Maxwell, without any dreams, or train noise waking him up, or the sound of streets outside. In the morning he’s not even sure what time it is exactly − it can be already way past noon, but, frankly, he doesn’t give a damn. Thoughtlessly sprawled alone in the bed that smells of Maxwell Roth, the last thing he wants in his life is to move, especially − away from here. Maxwell approaches, fully clothed, sits down and fondles Jacob’s naked thigh with his gloved hand, and tells him in a confidential tone that the room is entirely at Jacob’s disposal, perpetually.

“Breakfast’s on the table, if you wish, coffee is still hot and, forgive my complacency, is more than just excellent.” Jacob closes his eyes and opens again as soon as the fondle stops at his knee and Maxwell says: “However, I am obliged to leave you now, my dear, for the sake of business that cannot wait any longer.”

Jacob catches his wrist and pulls it back, followed by an intrigued and piercing look, to where the blanket has slipped from him, and shivers from the contrast of the gentle skin there and the glove’s rough one. He snaps: “It can and it will,” although not quite sure if he hasn’t just crossed a line. But there are no lines between them. Maxwell accepts the game, and Jacob breathes sharply through his teeth.

Left on his own, Jacob sleeps in; then, disturbed by hunger, he eats, walking thoughtfully around the room, picking and misplacing all those trifles from the countries he’s never been to. He spends almost an hour bathing, after finding the stove still warm and the water tank still half-full; no more rattling buckets, no tiny tubs, no crowdedness of Whitechapel public bathhouse… When Jacob finally leaves, he even takes his time to chat with the oddballs downstairs.

Now he visits the north bank almost as often as the south one; he hops off the train furtively, or comes over the rooftops, or borrows horses while their coachman hits the bottle in a street corner bar. They never arrange anything, simply because they don’t need to; they change everything on the run, sometimes rushing out into the night and returning in the early morning, sometimes staying in for hours and hours. Maxwell is tireless and burning from the inside − with his ideas, mischiefs and with his gaze that makes everything in Jacob stumble and fall on its back. Or knees. He moves, fixing his eyes to Maxwell’s and supporting himself on the wall over the headboard, there’s already a darker spot from his hands. Maxwell caresses the cross on his shoulder, then the bird on his chest. “…You like it?” Jacob says just to say something, whatever, and to hold on a bit longer. Maxwell pulls them both higher and leans in to kiss the faded inks.

They cool down, to no purpose, under a slightly opened window, Maxwell smokes and checks his watch: they’re going to visit City soon to see for themselves if Starrick has actually settled a storehouse full of explosives right in the center of London, and to mercifully deliver him from such a burden of responsibility. Jacob passes Maxwell a half-emptied bottle and gets a small bundle in return.

“What’s this?”

“Just a simple bagatelle, dear Jacob, but I do believe you’ll find it to your liking.”

Under a layer of paper he discovers a black velvet casing, inside of which on a lining of dark crimson there is a plain brass knuckles. It fits his fingers as if it was made exclusively for him, the weight is just the way he prefers it, and he clenches and unclenches his fist, turning it sideways and imagining how the broad blunt pikes will soon crash someone’s bones. He barely notices the engraving, and as he tilts his hand, the light reveals the letters _“L-O-V-E”_ , hidden in the spikes. Puzzled, he lifts his eyes and watches Maxwell exhaling smoke and squinting slyly through it. Jacob licks his lips.

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Nothing aside from what you already know, dear heart.”

Maxwell lets Jacob take away and crush his almost untouched cigar in the ashtray, and when their lips meet, it’s all tobacco leaves, feverish whispers and wiry hands, locking on Jacob’s waist.

They have neither common sense nor discretion. Starrick openly hates them, fills his tiny hideouts and seized territories chock-full of the Blighters, gunners and bastards who can actually fight; the Rooks whining about the rival gang breaking completely loose. Even Abberline sends Fryes an official application for some extra help for Scotland Yard. Meanwhile, Jacob steals a goddarn train for Maxwell. Jacob is more than sure he’d steal the Buckingham Palace and the Queen herself if only Maxwell Roth asked him to. He loses the last specks of caution, and the second he sees Topping sipping tea at the table right in his car, and Evie being skimpily annoyed, nothing clicks inside his head. His face has no time to drop, when he finds himself overwhelmed with a surprised _“Mr. Frye! What a joy!”_ and a fatal _“And I was just asking your dear sister where’d you vanished so suddenly”_. Jacob flops on his sofa, shrugs and says in the most indifferent tone that they better ask Dickens and his Cambridge kids, because first of all, they’ll have to find Charles somehow, and also because the man did use Jacob for his obscure business, pleading to find them a place for a future Society For, With or maybe Of Ghosts. It’s actually a miracle that Jacob didn’t let out anything about the Eccentric Club to Dickens, otherwise it’d be a real disaster. Topping masterfully uses the change of subject to makes a play for Evie, in his own awkward manner, and she doesn’t know how to get rid of him. Sighing with relief, Jacob grins to himself but the grin slowly fades as soon as he notices Greenie, standing silently behind a pot plant and a drawn curtain. He’s almost merged with a bookshelf, incomprehensibly looking at Jacob over his recondite book. For a minute they just stare at each other; Jacob lifts his eyebrows in a speechless _“what?”_ , but Green only shakes his head in some sort of a compassionate _“nothing”_.

Jacob leaves, using an unnecessarily complicated and illogical route, stopping from time to time to climb on a higher spot and watch the streets and roofs; then he takes a shortcut across Thames to help Ned with a small task of smuggling. The very idea of being followed is crazy enough, Topping wouldn’t care to, and his dearest sister wouldn’t dare to, would she? No way. Maxwell is already waiting for him and seems to be very smug with himself, when handing Jacob a sealed envelope without an address and sender’s name.

“A letter? For me?” Jacob doesn’t linger for explanations and just breaks the wax with a fork.

“I decided it would be better to give it to you in person.”

Maxwell’s handwriting is exquisite, with curls and long dashes; he writes the same way he speaks, and with every line Jacob feels warmth spreading all over from his neck to his cheekbones. Aside from everything else, the letter is an invitation to spend an evening at the premiere in a theater. Jacob saw some colorful posters on the walls of _Alhambra_ ten blocks from here, something about pirates, which is quite ironical since Evie and Greenie have just finished their penetration scheme − a perfect opportunity for a joke, and a horrible, horrible death − into that mansion of Kenway.

“And then what, you’ll ask me out to join you at the opera?” Jacob scoffs, feeling stupidly flattered, and runs his eyes over _“my dear Jacob”_ in the beginning and _“yours entirely, Maxwell”_ in the end, again and again, even brushes them with his fingers briefly. “Should I dig out my tail-coat? Or get a clean shave maybe?”

“Such flagrant formalities are totally unnecessary, my boy,” he reaches over their table with an open hand, and Jacob trustfully leans into the touch. “In any appearance you could step on that stage yourself and rivet thousands of eyes on you, Jacob.”

Maxwell loves him for hours, holding his hip and his throat tightly so that Jacob doesn’t lower his head, and he repeats, pressing his lips to Jacob’s ear: “Look at you, Jacob, you’re so perfect, look…” until Jacob’s knees give up and he has to grab the edge of a wobbly mirror on the old dressing table, caving in at his waist, nose to nose with his own reflection. He begs:

“ _Maxwell…_ ” and Roth pulls him back to his chest, skin damp and burning hot, looks him in the eyes through the silver-plated glass and croaks softly:

“Not Maxwell. _Jacob._ Jacob…” and it’s just enough.

He’s been around and on top of _Alhambra_ many times now: climbed the letters, smoldering in the darkness, slid down the dome after watching the city for a while − London was all too new to him back then, − even rushed through the fancy crowd at the main door. But he’s never been inside, what for? He had no interest for theaters and street performances when he was a kid, and nothing changed with years. Sitting obediently and watching something for hours? Can there ever be a torture more cold-blooded than this? But here and now it’s Maxwell, who knows exactly what’s enthralling and what’s not, and Jacob believes him.

He sorts through his top hats as if each of them actually has a hidden meaning to it, like those which Greenie ascribes to his dried weeds. Pathetic. Jacob pushes them all back on the shelf, and hesitates for a moment before unstrapping his gauntlet and kicking it under the sofa. Then he sneaks into Evie’s car and come back just in time to be caught.

“Is it my cane?”

“Well, technically…” Jacob folds it and attaches to his belt, the polished golden knob casted as an eagle head glimpses from under the flap. Evie suspiciously looks him up and down. “…it’s no one’s. Topping never mentioned who exactly he brought it for, so…” With his hands quickly raised and palms opened, he adds: “Didn’t touch the one with an elephant though. Elephants are not my style, you know. Indian in particular.”

Evie furrows, standing right in his way to the door. Fortunately, every car has doors on opposite sides.

“There’re too many jokes… coming out of your mouth recently, Jacob.”

“Not only jokes, actually, dear sister.”

He jumps onto the platform while it’s still slowly moving past; completely red but fast enough to not betray himself more than he just did, and before Bertha even manages to stop, he’s long gone from the station.

The music hall is crowded alright. Jacob squeezes past the line, his eyes stumbling on a porter, whose uniform is almost the same color the Blighters wear, however, the latter are not to be seen around this neighborhood, which is not surprising since there’s nothing affordable for them to prey upon. Inside _Alhambra_ is drowning in crimson: curtains, tapestries, carpets, sofas; it’s like he’s got into the hell itself, and found it a little bit too much maybe, but quite comfortable anyway. Maxwell makes a sharp contrast with such a background, and Jacob feels the hair on the back of his neck standing up, and the need to just freeze this moment and _stare_.

They have seats on a side balcony, separated from the other ones around the perimeter and the audience by the two walls and a curtain, and the same second it falls behind them, Jacob pulls Maxwell by a collar and kisses him hard and needy, while the hall under and above them is whirring, full of light and people’s eyes.

Jacob doesn’t know what he’s been expecting from the play. Definitely, not an entire ship in longitudinal section, water pouring down from the ceiling, or a mast which breaks during the boarding and pretends to fall on the heads of the front rows, but only hangs above the seats, causing spectators to run away in awe − only some of them have courage to return afterwards. The action is so rich that he can’t comprehend it entirely, and even with Maxwell’s hand on his knee, caressing it distractedly, Jacob is so absorbed that it takes him time to realize the story on the stage sounds familiar. Maybe, he wasn’t listening too carefully to the telltales their father used to tell them about fingers being cut in Jerusalem, and complicated dramas happening in Italy, but Ed Kenway’s legends were entertaining at least. During the intermission, he asks if Maxwell has ever heard stories about Kenway, and he has, of course he has.

“Just to think about it, his estate is at Queen Anne’s Square! Surely, the irony was intentional!”

They chuckle, agreeing on the mansion to be quite unimpressive and the pirate’s fate to settle with a family on the dullest island in the seven seas to be pretty disappointing. Nevertheless, Jacob is suddenly sullen and checks his gauntlet only to find nothing there, and he thinks, unintentionally, that there is really nowhere to hide from the Brotherhood, and even if they both don’t say _“assassin”_ out loud, he wouldn’t be surprised to know if Maxwell is aware of Kenway being one, as well as maybe he’s aware of Jacob, too.

Jacob doesn’t state that he wants to leave; he wants to sit through, really. In the darkness, while the cannons are rumbling without actually firing, Maxwell leans over to his ear and relieves him with a simple _“let’s go”_.

But Jacob tries, still:

“In the middle of it? Without even watching to the end?”

“We’ll have a plenty of opportunities to do it later, my dear.”

They leave, however not by the stairs to the lower floor, but the ones leading to the upper ones. Almost at the very dome Maxwell unlocks a door with his personal key, and Jacob steps into the room, amazed by an abrupt realization. Everything is carmine and coal-black, the windows are covered, table is piled with books and papers, wardrobe is open and full of suits, some of which, still with the hangers inside, are carelessly thrown on the bed. Jacob adds more and more details to the picture: a revolver holster hanging on a chair back, an empty bird cage in the corner, a bunch of half-painted sceneries behind it, a heap of ship schematics, some neckerchief brooches scattered on a windowsill next to a razor and a mirror... Jacob tilts his head in disbelief.

“Nooo...?”

Maxwell smiles and opens his arms, gesturing at his den, and Jacob has no idea if he should grin at the absurdity of this situation or just gape silently.

“You are...?” He points in the supposed direction of the stage: “And that too? You wrote it?”

“That I did, my dear,” his face is beaming. “Moreover,” he grabs a couple of wine glasses and a sealed bottle, “I was so inspired these days that I revised the old drafts, and they turned into a marvelous comedy! While being unable to write it with the undoubtedly remarkable hero of the story in front of my eyes,” he gives Jacob a filled glass, “I allowed myself to gift his character with passion and audacity, which I have a pleasure to watch myself in the recent months.”

Jacob snorts quietly, hiding his face behind the glass, and sprawls on the sofa, completely dumbstruck. Sure, he did imagine _things_ about Maxwell Roth, perfectly aware of him being very close to the criminal world, even closer than Ned himself, − but theater? It’s not what’s really important, actually, but the fact that Jacob’s been around _Alhambra_ dozens of times before, and probably climbed along these same windows, and brushed Green away when he was telling him about some Indian man building this place originally.

Maxwell is treading in front of him, talking about how he’s going to make a play out of that massacre at Fleet Street, which Jacob was investigating for a whole week, with Scotland Yard being absolutely unhelpful. And how wonderfully the grim London alley will fit in the theatrical entourage, and how it’s a perfect opportunity to let the real blood flow.

“It’ll take a lot to persuade the actors...” Jacob jokes. He realizes Maxwell is being deadly serious now.

“Actors? Oh no, the actors will stick to their permanent jobs, this troupe is exceptionally talented!”

And then it happens. The moment when Jacob’s attention is entirely fixed on him, he says it is the most convenient way to get rid of the unwanted Blighters, which is, however, a horrible waste of human resources, because he trained some of their generals for Crawford Starrick since Crawford Starrick was kind enough to grant Maxwell this glorious music hall.

Jacob feels his heart stopping for a second. He can barely open his mouth to ask if this some kind of a joke. And when Maxwell answers, and when he tells him, and when he explains, Jacob grows cold as if he’s been shot in the head and dumped into Thames. It’d be better to be shot in the head and dumped into Thames instead. Anyone else, but Maxwell. Not Maxwell. Not him.

“Why− why didn’t you tell me before...?” it’s hard to move his tongue around the words.

“I must admit, the plans had changed a bit back then.”

“Plans?” He thinks, maybe that one sip he just did, maybe it had opium or poison, or something that caused the world around him to start crumbling at once. “Everything... was planned? You knew that I am...”

That’s why Maxwell found him. That’s why he was coming to watch the fights.

“You’ve made a name for yourself in Starrick’s circles, my dear, and I’m afraid, a very bad reputation, too. However, to rephrase an ancient Indian saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so I was more than just intrigued.”

“Intrigued with how you’re going to use me? Were you testing me out? All this time at Topping’s−” he stops, overwhelmed with a sudden understanding. “That Blighter back then... and the one before? Hell... You − _you_ sent them!”

Maxwell vaguely gestures around with his open arms.

“Ah, just a tiny mischief! I couldn’t deny myself such pleasure.”

“They tried to kill me!”

“But,” Maxwell raises his index finger, cutting off a dramatic pause, “they didn’t succeed. Just the way I expected it to turn out.”

Expected... He sees now why the Blighters keep away from _Alhambra_. They are simply scared. As he is too. The terror is so strong it doesn’t let him stand up from his seat. He looks up at Maxwell as if seeing him for the first time. Maybe, he actually is.

“And then you expected me to turn the entire city into a goddamn bloodbath? Bring you Starrick’s head?! Become willing to do anything you order?”

Maxwell steps closer, but Jacob jumps over the armrest and backs away as far as possible.

“I was hoping...” Maxwell’s voice doesn’t sound like a distant thunder anymore, but a storm that’s burst out overnight, “...for a mutually beneficial partnership, Jacob.”

“And you want me to believe you?! All this time−!” he clenches and unclenches his fists helplessly. “All this time you knew and you didn’t say a word! And you’re telling me _now_?! That everything was just for that bastard alone?!”

Maxwell Roth is right in front of him, with his back perfectly straight, his eyes squinting, and a puddle of wine glistening bloodily at his feet, spilled from Jacob’s shattered glass.

“No, Jacob. It was for you.”

Jacob shakes his head, slowly backing off until his shoulder blades hit the door, which opens under the weight, and then he runs, leaping over three steps at once, just to get away from here to anywhere else. But there is no place for him to go in London, and so he follows Bertha along the roofs where the same damn letters are grinning at him from every pipe and every warehouse. He wants to howl, to snap someone’s neck, to wake up from this nightmare, to crash his head hard and lose his memory. The flow of thoughts is unbearable. He’s thunderstruck. He tears and throws down the board with those honorable assassin investigations of theirs, which are supposed to fix something for someone someday. Evie rushes in with a kukri in her hand.

“Jacob?! What on earth do you think you’re doing? A little bit of caution, if you please!”

“And what’s the point of that caution of yours?! What’s the point of _this_?!” he kicks the scattered papers and pins on the floor, with already tangled threads. “Starrick owns everything! _Everyone!_ He’s got his hands on every soul here, even us! It’s _‘Starrick-Starrick-Starrick’_ all day long, as if a couple of freed factories will change a thing! As if he won’t build twenty new ones, as if templars give a damn!”

He tumbles down on his sofa, shoving the pillows away; he’s helpless and angry and notices Evie moving closer to him.

“The point is that when we finally catch him−”

“Yeah?” Jacob snaps. “And then what? What will be left and _who_ once we finally catch him? Huh?”

“Jacob, really, what’s gotten into−”

He flinches away from a careful pat on his shoulder.

“Don’t you touch me!”

Evie stares at him like he’s a lunatic − and he probably is, after all; she’s looking for something in his face, then her hand drops, her lips press together into a thin line, and with a dry _“please, don’t make a mess here”_ she leaves to the dining car, almost not smashing the door shut. Almost.

Jacob is sitting alone for as long as it takes for the clatter, and shriek, and groans of the train to merge together into a hypnotizing and steady noise. He jerks forward to take and crumple the old portrait of Attaway covered with a dark stain − he knocked over an inkwell some time ago and made it look like an incident, while Greenie had to apologize, thinking he was the one responsible. He watches the paper ball bounce off the wall and roll under the cupboard, then his gaze fixes to doctor Elliotson’s face, already crossed out.

The history just keeps repeating itself, walking in circles and breathing down its own neck; everything repeats the same way it just did with... But Maxwell helped them. And Maxwell has never lied to him, ever; his sincerity is explosive and straightforward like a train with no brakes and full of dynamite, yes, but he’s always honest. And Maxwell has never asked for anything for his own sake only. And Maxwell has never denied him anything. Except for that one time when− Jacob rests his elbows on his knees and covers his burning face; shame, confusion, anger are blazing under his skin; he feels like he’s been betrayed and like he’s a complete idiot, too. It’s just Maxwell. It’s Maxwell, his _Maxwell_ , for hell’s sake. He reaches into his pocket, hooks the rings and pulls out the brass knuckles: the need to make sure the engraving is still there is almost intolerable.

It’s barely morning when he crosses the boundary between City and Strand, on foot but not alone. The Rook’s been following him since he left Bertha, maybe even got off her the same moment Jacob did. He doesn’t really try to be stealthy, thinking probably that Jacob’s too busy to notice. Jacob heads south, to Westminster, annoyed that he’s forced now to find a proper alley to throw a smoke bomb and sneak away over the roofs. The second he sees one, just further up the road, a couple of Blighters corners the not so lucky Rook. Good riddance then. Even if they rip each other’s throats out, whatever, he couldn’t care less. And once they’re done, Jacob will be far, far from here. However, he slows down a little, then stops completely. Oh, damn them all − these gangs, and sides, and the way of things; it should’ve been fun, at least partly, and not like this, not like a dead weight on his shoulders.

Jacob spins on his heels and shouts:

“Oi, assholes! Best regards from Mr. Roth! He’s just looking for some new actors!”

It works even faster than the poison darts do: the Blighters are gone in a flash. Jacob holds onto the cane on his belt the way the Rook could see it.

“That goes for you too! Scram before I crossed the fucking street!”

He storms into _Alhambra_ , breaking one of the main doors open and shoving away the porter with his miserable _“we are closed at the moment, sir”_.

“Looks to me like you’re open now. Thank me later.”

He walks right into the hall, between the rows of seats, to the slightly lit scene with the wrecks of what was a frigate just six hours ago. The ship looks like it’s got into a storm, on the reefs and a sawmill all at once; its rigging’s torn, the bulkheads destroyed, masts stretched on the floor, strewn with splinters and pieces of wood. Jacob walks through, into the backstage where, it seems, a grand celebration of the premiere night was expected to happen, but a plague unleashed and wiped everyone out, leaving the table almost untouched. He asks the empty room or rather himself what the hell has happened to this place and turns around as he hears a dry answer:

“You, I suppose.”

The man who said this is wearing a bowler tilted down over his eyes and an expression so tired as if he’s going to be tired for a hundred years in advance. Jacob demands:

“I need Maxwell.”

“Well. It’s reassuring.”

The tension of his waiting is torturous. He’s sitting on the edge of the dining table, staring at the wheel wrested out with a piece of the deck and chopped in three. He’s exhausted and bemused, he’s still in doubt, but he feels some kind of a twisted satisfaction upon seeing the evidences of someone else’s rage, so similar to his own. Bring it all onto the ring, and Maxwell Roth would beg for his mercy.

“Jacob!”

He almost jolts. Maxwell is unkempt, his cheekbones seem to be even sharper than they were before, his sleeves are rolled up and uneven. His face lightens up when their eyes meet, and he quickly moves around the table, and there’re just inches between them again, and Maxwell smells of resin and, as ridiculous as it is, of wood shavings. Jacob’s fingers are aching to touch; but he restrains himself.

“Was it really...” Jacob’s tone is low, and Maxwell narrows his eyes at the sound of his voice, “...that fucking hard... _‘Name’s Maxwell; I worked for Starrick, but now I want to see him going down in flames’._ Was it?”

Something flares up in Maxwell’s pupils, but he remains silent − silent for so long it’s enough to make Jacob startle once he finally moves half a step away and says with a tiny bow:

“Maxwell Roth − at your service, dear Jacob. I have had the misfortune of doing business with Crawford Starrick, and I regret it deeply. However, now,” he straightens up, and Jacob swallows hard, “there is nothing I desire more than you, Jacob Frye, to help me demolish everything he believes in. What do you say?”

Maxwell meets him halfway, in a rush so desperate it’s hardly far from being a true madness. He crashes Jacob’s mouth and Jacob himself, leans in with all his weight, brushes away everything from the table behind Jacob’s back: a heavy candlestick rattles down to the floor, and Jacob doesn’t even care if that tablecloth he’s sprawled on catches fire. His nape’s hurting after hitting the table the same way his lips are, gnawed by Maxwell, and the sounds coming up his throat and finding no release − they are the scraps of Maxwell’s name, and moans, and maybe, just maybe, the unshed and shameful tears. Jacob doesn’t let go of Maxwell as much as necessary to push the hands between their hips, unbuckle the belts and pull Jacob closer to the table edge. Behind Maxwell there are the opened curtains, the sceneries lifted to the ceiling, the disfigured vessel and the immense and empty hall of _Alhambra_ , her silent, blind and phantom audience always watching. Jacob draws Maxwell closer by the neck, until their foreheads touch and nothing’s left but these piercing eyes, looking only at him.

Somewhere up in the scaffolds under the dome there’s a hole, causing a draft to swing ropes and sandbags like pendulums. Jacob lazily pulls his trousers on and tucks the shirt in. He’s lying in the epicenter of chaos, surrounded by broken candles, expensive silverware and an opened bottle of champagne knocked over into a fruit bowl. He fumbles in it, fishes out and thoughtlessly puts a piece of pineapple into his mouth. Maxwell is right here beside him, settled in a high chair, with his long legs stretched on the table, the point of his shoe moving restlessly at the periphery of Jacob’s field of view.

It feels like their souls were beaten out of them − by them. _Alhambra_ is very quiet. Jacob props himself on the elbow, then finally sits up, while Maxwell’s watching him as if waiting for something, so Jacob speaks up as if he’s confident enough for this:

“You’re going with me. Now.”

“Where to, my dear?” Maxwell’s tone is almost meek.

“You know exactly where to.”

Jacob kicks his tilting chair, with no bad intension, just to mess around, and Maxwell balances easily, merely affected, and smiles at him thoughtfully.

“This is going to be... interesting.”

“This is going to be a disaster.”

They leave the music hall through the back door, stepping right into the morning and squinting at the dim sun; it feels different and confusing even. Jacob comes closer, almost nose to nose with Maxwell and pulls the pocket watch from his vest to check the time. Then both of them simultaneously start walking in the direction of St. Pancras Station. There’s a belated thought passing through − of the sister’s cane left somewhere on _Alhambra_ ’s floor, but they don’t have time for this; Bertha is arriving in less than fifteen minutes.

**Author's Note:**

> A lovely drawing made by **Deadlysequence**  
>  https://deadlysequence.tumblr.com/post/190409497338/for-troublemakingrebel-scene-of-shall-we-just
> 
> * Just noticed recently that some fan-pages state Jacob has a _Raven_ tattooed on his chest, but it's actually a _HAWK_ , guys.  
> * Fun fact you didn't ask for: the real _Alhambra_ and the first _Eccentric Club_ were at the same square lol But it'd be too cruel to make Jacob go on dates to the Club and see Alhambra outside while he's STILL oblivious to who Maxwell is, so i moved the Club away, for the dear boy's sake  
> * The giant narwhal is a reference to Captain Nemo :D  
> * also, fuck Ubisoft.


End file.
